


The Necklace

by MedeaV



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Dreams, F/M, Fix-It, Guilty Pleasures, Hallucinated shower sex, Hallucinations, Hourglass necklace, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Memory Loss, Not TFATWS compliant, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Canon Fix-It, Red Room Romance, Shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 02:53:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30082371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MedeaV/pseuds/MedeaV
Summary: It starts inconspicuous enough. He stuffs the hourglass necklace into his pocket almost on accident and it's his business if he decides to wear it, right? After all, she died to bring all of them back so it's only fair to honor her. Even if he starts dreaming about her and hallucinating her, that doesn't mean anything. He never even knew her, beyond trying to kill her. It just feels right. And the- yeah, no, he's definitely going insane.Or: What if the necklace Bucky wears in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier is actually an hourglass necklace?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 23
Kudos: 78
Collections: WinterWidow





	The Necklace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissMorwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMorwen/gifts).



> You can thank MissMorwen for me actually writing this, and also for almost the entire first scene! If you're wondering why it's so much more vivid than my usual writing, that's because I stole it from her.
> 
> I wrote this in three days just before last Christmas and now, just before the release of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, seems like a good time to share it with you!
> 
> There will be a (even longer) sequel about Natasha but I'll probably only finish that after TFATWS has run.

It starts inconspicuous enough, and he doesn't realize it at first.

They've broken into a warehouse in the middle of the night because some bigot sent a stupid terror threat. Sadly but unsurprisingly, a lot of people are not okay with Sam being Captain America, and sadly but more surprisingly, police authorities have decided that's just talk and it'll blow over if they just ignore it, and clearly a person who spells it _supprimacy_ cannot be expected to have weapon-grade ricin. Consequently, they have to make sure themselves the next person to buy a mini shield kitchen magnet or a t-shirt with Sam's stupid face or a hat with the wings on it doesn't die slowly and painfully from ricin poisoning.

Breaking into the warehouse is easy, even in protective equipment. Bypass one guard, break one padlock, pick one lock and they're standing amidst rows of high shelves filled with boxes. It smells of dust and plastic and it's dark, though moonlight filters in through a few windows. Sam wastes no time passing the shelves until they reach BS-13 and from then on, it's just reading labels and ripping boxes open, looking for that white powder somewhere on a backside, inside, some nook or cranny.

As expected, it takes a while. There are plush hammers, green muscle shirts, endless amounts of Stark's helmets out of plastic, night lights, caps, action figures, some amount of sex toys, plastic jewelry, costumes. A smaller, worn box high up the shelf catches Bucky's attention and he pulls it down. The label is peeling off, faded, unreadable. The scanner probably wouldn't recognize the bar code anymore. The cardboard box has already been ripped open and taped shut several times and the top is currently hanging open. He crouches down and pulls the flaps apart.

The box is only half full, lots of tiny plastic bags that reflect his flashlight. He pulls one out, not even gloves on the left hand. No need for that kind of protection. It's a necklace, probably also plastic, two red triangles pointing at each other. The string is supposed to look like leather but not quite getting there. He flips it around and the backside is silver in color though not in material. There's a red smudge from the other side. It looks cheap.

He remembers her vaguely. She had it on her belt. It was never as flashy as the hammer or the shield or the robo suit, and she was never as much in the limelight as the others. She was there, though, when no one else was. And now she's dead, on a cold planet far away, in another time.

He tucks the flashlight under his armpit and rips the plastic bag open. It feels as cheap as it looked, dropping into his metal palm. It would break if he just made a fist. It's tiny, frankly, a little pendant you could tuck away under your shirt, that people wouldn't spot until they got very close. Could be any necklace, actually. Could mean anything to anybody.

"Hey, did you find something?"

He startles and jumps up, quickly stuffing the necklace and the plastic bag away. "Hm? No. Just-"

Sam steps closer, peering into the cardboard box. "Oh. Nat's."

He looks sad, actually, as far as one can tell with the protective mask. Knew her better than Bucky ever did. "Guess they'll never sell these now," Sam suggests carefully. "Shame. We wouldn't be here without her."

"If she was looking for public recognition and gratitude, she was in the wrong business."

Sam snorts. "Right. I feel that. Come on, let's go through the rest before the day shift starts."

He finds it later in his pocket, already forgotten about it. The red hourglass. Staring at it makes him feel sad. Is that all that's left of her? After everything? Cheap necklaces with her symbol gathering dust in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere?

He puts it around his neck, tucks it under his shirt. It feels right. And then he forgets about it again.

The string rips only a few weeks later, as was to be expected, and he replaces it with a solid silver chain.

He only starts feeling weird about it when he dreams about her for the first time. She's in a training facility, red hair, dealing out ruthless punches and kicks. At some point later, she's getting into a helicopter, hair red against the snow. The last time, she's strapped to a stretcher, dragged down a dark hallway, red hair amidst the white scrubs.

He always sees her from afar and she never reacts to his presence. It's cobbled together from seeing her fight, what he read about her and his own memories of Siberia. He's projecting onto a dead woman. He takes the necklace off.

"Nightmares?" Sam asks congenially, pouring him coffee. "You said something in your sleep."

Not quite nightmares, which is a nice change. Still. He'd tell Sam but how is he supposed to explain that he's obsessed with this dead woman he never even knew?

"Really? What did I say?"

Sam grins, shrugging. "I don't know, man. I don't speak Russian."

He doesn't dream about her again, so after a week, he puts the necklace back on. It feels important. He feels connected to her. Like he knows better who he is when he's wearing the red hourglass around his neck. After all, they went through similar things, right? At least that's what he read. If she were here, maybe she would understand. So he's going to keep her resting against his chest until he understands it himself.

Sam asks him about the necklace under his shirt once and he shrugs and lies.

They get into a fight in Laos (to be fair, where haven't they gotten into a fight) and he takes a hit to the chest, almost the neck, and later finds out the pendant broke off. The whole pendant, not just the lower triangle but the ring at the top. That's how cheap it was. He could hit himself on the head for being so careless.

He gets a better one custom-made by a local blacksmith, this time out of silver, no color. He's pretty sure he overpays by orders of magnitude but the guy doesn't ask any questions so it's worth it.

The Carter lady is very pissed at him for almost missing extraction, but that's also worth it.

He dreams about her again but this time, it's weirder. She's dancing on a stage, pink tutu and everything, but with knives strapped to her pointe shoes, scratching across the stage with awful noises. She doesn't pay any attention to him, only dances. He realizes that she's covered in bruises, cuts, she's bleeding all over but that doesn't seem to bother her at all. She just dances and the music continues playing and the knives scrape across the wood. He wakes in a cold sweat.

He tries to ask Sam about the song but of course, Sam doesn't know anything about classical ballet, so he makes sure to corner Carter alone at their next run-in.

"Can I ask you something?"

She's staring ahead, like the professional she is. "Sounds weird. Continue."

"I have this song stuck in my head."

She grins. "Just google the lyrics, it's not that hard."

"It doesn't have lyrics."

"Oh, okay." She tilts her head. "I guess you have to sing it for me, then. Or at least hum it."

He clears his throat and tries, though it sounds horrible and nothing like in his head. Carter's face lights up anyway. "Oh, that's Prokofiev! Romeo and Juliet. I don't remember the exact song but you'll find it."

That's amazing. "Wow. Thanks. You are so much more helpful than Sam."

Carter snorts. "Ah, well. Natasha used to play it when we sparred. Of course, with her, dancing and fighting wasn't that far apart."

Now she looks sad as well, and he actually feels that sadness. "Oh yeah. I saw that."

The song turns out to be the _Dance of the Knights_ , which… oddly fitting.

He dreams about her again (probably because he stopped taking the necklace off to sleep, because he's afraid Sam will find it) and this time, she looks at him and talks to him. She's leaning on one side of the window and he's leaning on the other side, somewhere down there some target they're supposed to watch or kill or- he's not clear on that when he wakes up. But he knows she looked at him and said: "You don't enjoy killing."

He never enjoyed killing, though there was satisfaction with a difficult shot, a clean hit, a job well done. He looked into her eyes and the dream version of her saw deep into his soul, knew everything about him and still didn't run away. "Do you?" he asked.

She smiled, staring down on the street where indistinguishable figures were moving. "Yes. Sometimes."

He paints the hourglass black.

It gets worse when they go to Russia, but of course, that's where Zemo decides to run. He dreams about her comforting him, can't remember because of what, about dancing with her, about teaching her how to shoot better. She's pretty good, at all of the above. Even worse, he likes dreaming about her, so much so that waking up feels like a drag. Waking up to a world without her.

Boy, Sam would tell him he's being creepy and he'd be absolutely right.

Zemo is hard to find, not in Arkhangelsk, not in Yekaterinburg, not in Omsk. There's always a hint he might be somewhere else but no hint that he might have been _here_. This whole goose hunt is starting to feel pointless.

Sam's out and he's sitting in their hotel room, staring at a wall. He can imagine her sitting there, on the chair where Sam dropped his jacket before he left, crossed legs, hands clasped around her right knee and gently rocking back and forth, smiling. Red hair. "Why'd you enjoy it?" he asks her. "Killing?"

"Some people hurt me," she says. "Really bad."

He breathes out, staring at the ceiling, fingers twitching. "Zemo hurt me pretty bad."

"Mhm. Are you going to kill him?"

His fingers twitch again. "I don't know. Maybe."

He hears her snort. "That's not what you promised Sam."

Of course she knows, she's in his head after all. He looks at her again. "He's still a threat."

"Maybe," she admits. "But you won't feel safer when he's gone. And you won't feel better either."

He's almost accepted that he'll never feel better, at this point. He pulls out the pendant, twirling it between his fingers. When he looks up, she's standing right in front of him, gently pulling the pendant from him, he lets it go without resistance. She smiles, looking at the black hourglass. "That? Kinda cute."

And then she's gone again.

Even Sam, ever the optimistic one, is starting to have doubts about whether they should be here, which is not exactly boosting morale, but Carter doesn't want to pull them just yet and so they're still meandering throughout the city, chasing down cold leads. Something about these Siberian towns always feels desolate, despite the colorful buildings, the church domes and the glass towers. Maybe it's the roads that are too broad or the sky that is too close or the knowledge that you'd have to drive for days until you get anywhere significant. Maybe it feels on the outside like he feels on the inside.

"What's our stop again?" Sam asks.

Bucky shrugs. He'll remember it when it gets announced, and until then he doesn't care. Sam snorts. "Right. You don't like this place, do you?"

He stares out of the bus window. "That obvious?"

"A little," Sam confirms, which sounds like an understatement. "What are you thinking about?"

He's not thinking, he's just commiserating, not even anything in particular. Just wallowing in the uneasy feelings without asking where they come from. It's amazing how much time you can spend thinking about how you're feeling bad, feeling bad because you're thinking about how you're feeling bad, feeling bad because you're feeling bad. A loop, or more of a downward spiral.

"Hey."

He looks up and Natasha is standing there, in the aisle, nodding her head towards the front of the bus. "Is it me or was that guy in the files?"

Of course it's not her, she's not real. He stares ahead, a guy clutching onto the pole, staring back at him, right hand curled in his pocket, tense shoulders-

The bus stops and it clicks, the guy shoves his way out, Bucky jumps up and ducks out as well, spotting the guy on his left, walking with a hunch, he sprints after him and the guy curses and starts running away, ducking into alleys, throwing trash cans in his way to slow him down. Another corner. Another alley. He knows the city too well, which gives him an advantage, even though Bucky's faster. Another corner and the suspect reaches a bigger-

Sam slams into him from the right, knocking him to the ground, and points a gun at him. "Yo, dude, better stay down."

The guy on his back tentatively raises his arms, very pale guy. Bucky crouches down and pulls a phone from that guy's pocket. It's on a call right now, for around fifteen minutes already, probably connected to the earpiece the guy has. The number is helpfully saved as _Zemo_. "Well, look at that."

"Tell that guy to fuck off," Sam orders. "And that we're coming for him."

They send the guy and the phone number to Carter for interrogation but of course, neither leads very far. The guy only knows Zemo's constantly moving around, not where, and the phone number is a dead end. Apparently, Zemo has goons watching them, following them around. If that's not something to ease your paranoia.

"Sharon said to tell you good job," Sam announces, dropping onto the bench next to him. "So, what's next? He's definitely not here, that's for sure."

"He could be anywhere," Bucky replies, bitter. Natasha's watching them from across the hall, arms crossed.

"Krasnodar?" Sam suggests. "That's the last place our goon saw Zemo. Would be a start."

That's half a continent away, close to the Black Sea. And Zemo knows his henchman has been caught. Even if he were there, he'd be making damn sure to get the fuck away, as quickly as possible. "Nothing on the phone?"

"We don't have access to the central registry," Sam replies. "So it's a guessing game."

Natasha is still glaring at him, clear disappointment. "If Zemo knew where we were the whole time, he'd move out of our way as much as possible."

Sam pulls out his phone, opening a map of Russia. "Right. He was in Krasnodar, South West, while we were looking for him in Arkhangelsk, North West."

Bucky swipes up to the left corner. "Then we went South East, to Yekaterinburg. So he'd move-"

"North," Sam completes, swiping up from Krasnodar. "Not much West he can go, unless he leaves the country. Let's say Moscow."

"Then we go East again," Bucky adds. "Omsk. We lose a lot of time there. Where'd he go?"

Sam stares at the map. "Arkhangelsk. It's a little East but still far from Omsk. And we've already searched for him there, we wouldn't go back."

"But now he knows that we know that he's trailing us," Bucky states. "So he wouldn't stay in Arkhangelsk."

"Your accent is terrible," Natasha informs him.

Sam bites his lip. "Wasn't there a Hydra base around there? Access to the White Sea?"

"Possible," Bucky admits. "Very sparsely populated area."

"Let's ask Sharon, she knows the files," Sam suggests, stuffing his phone away. "And we should check that out. If there's a Hydra base close by, chances are Zemo at least made a visit."

The phone data confirms Zemo in Arkhangelsk just two days ago but since then, it's dead. Of course. He won't be there anymore but maybe they can find a hint to where he's going next, especially since he must have left in a hurry.

He dreams about Natasha again but this time, it's worse than ever before. It's a small room, tiny window with bars, paint peeling off the walls, and he's in the bed, naked, Natasha curled around him, also naked, red hair sprawled over his chest, she's sleeping peacefully, the blanket's just below her waist, which means-

He wakes up all hot and bothered. This has to stop. He can't keep making shit like that up. She's dead, for God's sake. Hallucinating her as part of his subconscious, someone who says the things he's thinking himself, externalizing some of his thoughts to her- that was weird enough but this goes too far, dreaming about her naked, she's fucking _dead_ -

Sam's staring at him. Probably because his hair is a mess- no, he cut that- because of the fucking boner- no, he still has the blanket around his hips- because his face is red- no, it's lower, around his chest. The fucking pendant slipped out.

He stuffs it hurriedly back under his shirt, because acting guilty will absolutely make things better and doesn't kill any chance of concocting an innocent explanation, but of course Sam already saw it and recognized it. He clears his throat, looking away. His face feels hot and his body is still drumming with arousal from that wildly inappropriate dream. Just let it go. Please just let it go-

Sam doesn't let it go. "Are you- are you _fanboying_ her?"

"I don't fucking know, okay?" he snaps, harsher than he wanted to.

He turns his back to Sam, to calm the fuck down. It's an explosive mix of arousal, shame, humiliation, anger, feeling exposed. Sam is silent but now he knows Bucky's a fucking weirdo and a creep and that means it's all over, trying to kill him might have been forgivable with the brainwashing and the mind control but this is straight-up psychopathic and there's absolutely no justification for-

"Are you feeling guilty because you shot her?" Sam suggests calmly, stretching the words.

He turns his head, making sure the necklace stays hidden. "What?"

"Well, you shot her twice," Sam remarks casually. "And choked her once. And now she's dead and you never got to apologize to her."

That- that almost makes sense. He's trying to get closer to her, even though she's not really there, and he can't face the guilt quite yet so he puts her in other contexts, talks to her about Zemo, draws her into the mission, just like if she was really there. He's working up the courage to apologize to her. He's looking for absolution for his sins from his imagined version of a dead woman. Which is also pathetic but in a more acceptable way. And he often wakes up horny and frustrated, that's actually not that special.

"Maybe," he mumbles out, turning his head back and putting on an actual shirt.

Sam sighs, walking somewhere. "I miss her, too, you know."

But Bucky can't really miss her if he never knew her, if all he ever did was try to murder her and maybe stand around her once or twice. Maybe that makes it worse, if he never got the chance to get to know her. He'd probably have liked her, and maybe she could have forgiven him not out of the goodness of her heart but because she knows what it's like. That would have been nice for a change. He clears his raspy throat again. "Could you- keep that to yourself?"

The ultimate marker of having something to hide, but Sam isn't out to get him, thankfully. "Sure, man. Gotta say, I thought you have one with Steve and the shield, with how weird you were being about it."

Bucky snorts. That punk. "Thanks. I'll be ready in a minute and then we can get going."

He splashes his face with cold water, not enough time for a shower. When he looks up, he sees her in the mirror, leaning against the tiles. Dressed. He can handle dressed daytime hallucinations. He sighs, washing his hands. "Sorry."

She shrugs. "I'm dead, right? No harm, no foul."

He snorts, drying his hands off. "Right."

The Hydra base is hard to reach, even by car, and it consists of exactly two huts. There's also a peer with an old submarine which is intriguing but, as evidenced by it still being here, clearly not telling them where Zemo went. Carter's forensics team can look into that later.

One hut has oil containers and a workshop, probably for keeping the submarine in good shape, and the other has a single uncomfortable bed and a shelf with an absurd amount of files. No water, no electricity, but there are vague footsteps in the dust. Probably recent, probably Zemo. There's only a thin layer of dust on most of the boxes, so he probably went through those. Bucky pulls the lid off one and peers inside, recognizing the layout. "These aren't Hydra files."

"Hm?" Sam pulls out another box. "Oh man, they're all in Russian. Looks old."

Typewriter. He flips the top one open, finding submarine layouts, some of the descriptions in English. Espionage. "These are KGB files. Old. This one's from '57."

"Yeah, that won't help us," Sam remarks, pulling out another box. "Or Zemo. He can't even read Russian."

"But he would have had time. We were in Omsk for at least two weeks."

Sam sighs, putting the lid back on. "You're right. Let's at least look at the ones without dust on top, no point in driving all this way and then leaving empty-handed."

It's really a lot of files. Sam hands him everything that looks worth reading. It's all from the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, foreign espionage, mostly weapons technology and military intelligence but all of it so old it's practically useless. 50s, 60s, 70s. Sam puts his hands to his hips, bending backwards to counteract the forward hunch. "You know what I'm thinking? He didn't go through all of them. Some are still covered in dust."

Bucky makes a non-committal noise, flipping the file on plane engines shut. This is just the same as the submarine - intriguing but ultimately useless. "So either he decided it wasn't worth it and gave up," Sam suggests. "But as you said, he had a lot of time. And he's a really assiduous guy, probably his German streak."

Bucky snorts, opening another file. More planes. "Oh yeah. Noticed."

"Alternatively, he found something," Sam continues. "Something so good he got up and left immediately, not bothering with anything else."

"Yeah, if it was so good, he would have taken it with him, though," Bucky remarks drily, slapping the file shut.

"Barnes?"

Sam's staring inside a box. "Uh, this should interest you."

Ohoh. He's never seen a file about him that isn't bad. Actually never ever saw a file he liked. He pushes up slowly. Sam holds the cover out for him. It has a red hourglass on the front, not even subtle. Shit. His stomach jumps.

"I mean, of course Nat would have a KGB file," Sam states, flipping it open. "But why it would be here-"

"Gimme." He almost rips the file from Sam, flipping through it quickly. "That's not her. That's a woman called Yelena Belova, born in- wait, there's more."

"None of them looks like Nat, though," Sam comments. "So who are they? Are there more like her?"

"The file is pretty old," Bucky remarks, flipping further through it. "So they're probably dead. This one's born in '49, that's way over the life expectancy in this job."

"Hold on." Sam plucks a tiny shred of paper out of the ring binder. "That looks like somebody ripped something out."

"Could be old," Bucky cautions.

"Could be recent," Sam returns. "Are they sorted by age? Alphabetically?"

Bucky flips one back, one forward. "Looks alphabetical."

"And it might just be the one with R?" Sam suggests cheekily.

Bucky frowns. "Could be. Between P and T. But- the whole binder is from 1972. That's way too early."

"Okay, putting that aside, that's probably what Zemo found, right?" Sam asks. "It was right on top. He finds Nat's file, can't read it but recognizes her, he has no use for the others so he rips that one out and leaves. He's not going to get anything better."

Bucky scrunches up his face, unhappy. "I don't know. That theory has a lot of holes."

"Do you wanna go through the rest?" Sam asks back.

Oh, dear God, no. Sam's phone pings, fortunately. He reads it. "That's from Sharon. Zemo's phone just pinged a cellphone tower in- Syktywar or something like that. Syktyvkar."

No idea where that is. "That sounds like a trap."

Sam shrugs. "Wanna find out? I'll drive, you can read the file."

He was afraid he'd hallucinate her even more, now that he's talked about her with Sam and with the KGB files, but he doesn't. Sam drives and he reads, then he drives and Sam sleeps, and then Sam drives again and he nods off, dreamlessly. They get off in Syktyvkar the next day.

It's a middle-sized town, even has an airport, mostly shipping out wood. He already hates it. The cellphone tower covers half of the city, so that's gonna be a lot of running around.

There's no trick to this. Zemo probably slept in some hotel, unlikely he had another place to crash here, so they'll have to ask around there. He probably went to a restaurant at some point, so that's another stop to try. Unfortunately, there's a lot of both.

He gets a flash of emotion when there's an hourglass-looking letter in one of the hotels. He's not even sure what letter it's supposed to be but- this is dumb. He's blowing it way out of proportion. He really needs to get a grip.

They run around for a week until Carter texts them Zemo might just have left Moscow for Dubai. Which means he was leading them wildly off track and they wasted a lot of time. And who knows where he'll go from Dubai. In short, no point in following his fake trail around in person. Instead, Carter has a hint towards another Hydra base, which sounds way better and less nerve-wracking. So it's back to the US.

He starts seeing her randomly on the street, every young woman who vaguely looks like her. It only works in passing and it's gone when he blinks. He's probably going insane. He also dreams about sparring with her and he pores over the file with the hourglass. There are 27 women in there, all born in the late 40s and early 50s. They have all the hallmarks of sleeper agents but the file only describes their training, not their missions. It's brutal, of course. Anything else would have been surprising. He sighs, flipping the page. "I'm missing something, right?"

"Yes," she replies, tipping her toes on the floor.

"And you can't tell me?" he asks.

She snorts, smiling. "I would, if I could. But I'm dead, you dummy."

He rubs his eyes, getting up and staring out of the window, leaning on the windowsill. "Wish you were here. You'd know what to do."

"Sure I would," she replies. "But you'll work it out as well."

That doesn't sound like something he'd think about himself. Which is scary. "The training files are pretty useless. Even if it's yours."

"Oh, yeah," she agrees. "That's useless. To you, and to Zemo."

He throws his hands up. "Well, that's all there is! Except for the thing I'm missing."

She gets up, takes the file, flips it to a certain page and hands it to him. "There."

It's a long-term training plan, which abilities have to be acquired when. Every agent had one of those. "That's just more training info."

She rolls her eyes at him. "Really? Come on."

"Seriously." He traces the lines. "It's just dates. And- I don't know what that is."

She glares at him. "Oh, really."

"Dates and letters," he repeats. "I don't know."

"Well, where would you find out?" she asks.

"Date and location go together," he states. "So it's a code for the training facilities. Most of the KGB files remain classified and this is even more secret. But if the missing file was indeed yours… you'd have known."

She smiles, so he must be on to something. "Yes."

"And you might have told SHIELD when you defected," he continues. "So there's a chance it's now online."

She grins, dropping onto the bed and crossing her legs. "Mhm. I'll wait here."

He finds her recruitment interview fairly quickly and it does have her listing all the secret bases she was trained at, so he's pretty excited until he reads that she already smoked all of them out years before SHIELD ever got to her. So that's what she meant with killing people who hurt her. God, he's starting to think about her like an independent person and not just a hallucination his brain created to make himself feel better.

Anyway, this all seems like a dead end. Even if Zemo figures this out, there won't be anything useful there. Of course, his hallucination of her wouldn't know she already cleared those facilities, so he shouldn't be surprised. He's just wasting his time with this.

When he gets back to his room, she's not there anymore. But then again, she never was.

Unfortunately, Sam and he get into a fight again and this time, they get arrested, all of their possessions including the stupid necklace go into a file which gets leaked even before Carter bails them out. She doesn't remark on it, though, so maybe she didn't see it. And all of the coverage he reads later speculates whether he has a new symbol, like they're all suffering from collective amnesia. It's bewildering but okay, less embarrassing that way.

His dreams get worse, though, as Carter sends them all across the country on the vaguest leads. He gets used to the fighting and the cuddling but then there's the making out and the- he usually wakes up before it goes too far but the direction is clear. God, his brain is going to need another wipe if this goes on.

He sees her at least once a day, somewhere on the street, a pedestrian or inside a car passing by, every woman with vaguely red hair and a lot of others, too, and it doesn't go away that quickly anymore. Hearing them talk helps but not always. And he's not even doing anything that has anything to do with her, just chasing down cold Hydra leads.

Carter calls them eventually. "We think Zemo murdered somebody. You should check it out."

"Where?"

"Russia."

Great.

They're not great crime scene investigators and he sees at least a dozen Natashas pass by. Something about this country brings out the worst in him. Sam asks sensible questions and takes notes and he just stares across the street at her face in the crowd, staring back at him.

However, the murdered guy's name actually shows up in the Black Widow file, though Sam needs to suggest it multiple times before he looks it up. Something about this rubs him wrong. The murder victim appears to have been more of a quartermaster, no involvement in the actual training. Sam makes him explain the code for the facilities again and pores over it until he can point out there's one code that doesn't show up in Natasha's SHIELD files. Maybe she just forgot to mention it. Or maybe she never cleaned that one up. Incidentally, the murdered guy seems to have worked there, so that's actually a lead. Thing is, they have no idea where that facility is.

Between constantly seeing her in the streets and dreaming about her, it's very hard to focus. He's preoccupied with making sure Sam doesn't notice, pretty sure he's failing at that. He tries to avoid it, tries not to stare at her around town, but preventative masturbation and cold showers do nothing against the wet dreams where he has no control. The only way out is not sleeping at all but that's hardly manageable and would be very obvious to Sam. If he's lucky, he'll get one non-sexual dream about her in a week but that's rarer and rarer. He sands the black color off the pendant and stuffs it into the nightstand drawer but that does exactly nothing.

The dreaming part isn't actually that bad, and that's part of the problem. In the moment, everything is right, kissing her, feeling her skin pressed against his, thrusting into her until she screams with pleasure, that all feels great. Waking up always ruins it, though, and getting flashbacks throughout the day, when he sees her on the street- that's the problem. He's long given up on getting a grip on this. It would be enough if he could just see it through until it inevitably goes away, but it shows no sign of doing anything like that.

The next night, he has a particularly vivid one, complete with all the moans and the sound of skin slapping skin and the smell of her sweat, her bouncing breasts, her fingers digging into his chest. It feels like it takes forever, too. He wakes up just before he comes to witness himself actually soiling his pajama pants once again, exactly like a twelve-year-old. Oh Jesus Christ. She's still lying on top of him, head propped up on his chest, tracing his jawline with a finger. He groans. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"I think you're doing it to yourself," she replies, and the bathroom door opens and she vanishes.

He pulls the blanket up quickly, to make sure none of the smell gets out. Sam tilts his head, lowering the toothbrush. "Hey, man, this is weird to ask but… do you talk to yourself?"

Yes. No. He rubs his eyes. It's too early for this, and his blood is still downstairs. He groans but there are no steps away. "Seriously, are you okay, man?" Sam questions. "Seems like you're getting worse and worse."

Well, he can't move without revealing even worse things, and Sam doesn't seem inclined to just go away, so he'll have to come up with something. "I don't know, man," he admits, rubbing his eyes again, mostly so he can hide behind his hands. "I just can't get her out of my head. I always see her on the street, I dream about her-"

"Yeah, I know," Sam interrupts. "You keep saying her name in your sleep."

Shit, so Sam can hear him. That blurs the line even further. He groans. "Anything else?"

"Nothing I'd understand," Sam replies. "So, is it still shooting her or- okay, that sounds like something else."

He's pretty sure he blushes. "I don't know, it just keeps getting worse. And nothing I try can stop it."

"That sucks," Sam remarks, walking into the bathroom to spit out. Bucky uses the chance to sit up and fasten the blanket around his waist, because that smell is nasty. "It's probably this place. So once we get out, it should get better."

It's not this place, though. No running away. "Guess it'll go away eventually."

He sounds more confident than he feels. Sam sits down on his bed, pulling on shoes. "Bathroom's free. I'll go to the baker, get us breakfast and then we'll see."

He takes a cold shower and Natasha slips in. Seeing her nude while he's awake is new. Maybe he's still sleepy. He wrings out the pajama pants, avoiding her gaze. Such a fucking mess he's in. She steps up to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, getting on her toes to kiss him. It feels so fucking real that he groans against her lips. She's warm, her small body pressing against him- how can he hallucinate so many details, even the way her inner thighs feel around his cock? He groans again, trying half-heartedly to push her away. "Shouldn't."

She seems displeased with that, running a finger over his scarred shoulder. "You know, it would be easier on you if you didn't fight it."

Of course his hallucination would say that. But it's so detailed- he even sees the water run through her wet hair, down her shoulders, some of it dripping off her breasts that have blue veins shimmering through. No scars, though, not on her shoulder and not on the left side of her abdomen. "You're not even real."

"Exactly," she replies, leaning in to kiss him, boobs pressing against his chest- if his senses are so good at fooling him, there's no point in resisting.

He pushes her against the tiles, hoisting her up with his left arm, pressing his hips against her so she stays there, her legs wrap around his waist. He kisses her wildly, devouring her, and she gives as good as she gets, clawing at his shoulders and back. It takes a bit of fumbling but then he slides into her easily, she's very wet- of course she's wet, this is his sexual fantasy of- She pulls on his short hair, dragging him in for a kiss, her back arches so her nipples slide against his chest. She feels heavenly, as always. He thrusts into her and she sighs with content, fingers in his hair relaxing.

He knocks her against the tiles, setting a fast pace, no patience. She groans with her mouth open, her breath cool against his wet face- an amazing amount of detail, really, not to mention the feeling of gliding in and out of her. She kisses him, fingernails digging into the back of his neck, her legs tightening around his waist, and he slams into her, making her moan, the sweetest of sounds. "That's good," she breathes, eyes closed, fingertips dragging over his cheek. "Just like that."

He attacks her lips again and slams into her, groaning without inhibition, nothing to hide. She thrusts her tongue into his mouth, dragging on his hair in no particular direction. He fucks her into the shower wall until she convulses around him, moaning loudly, and then he lets go as well, coming inside of her, with her.

He almost blacks out from it, two orgasms with so little time in between. She always had it easier in that regard. She sighs contentedly, running her fingers through his hair, over his shoulders, legs clinging onto his waist. It's really easier when he doesn't fight it. She presses his head against her shoulder and he peppers little kisses there. She giggles.

He lets her down gently and slips his right hand between her thighs without even thinking about it, cleaning himself out of her. She moans as his fingers drag over her walls, head dropping back against the tiles, breasts thrust forward towards him. He sucks on one nipple, twisting his hand so his thumb rubs over her clitoris. She groans deep in her chest and spasms with a scream.

He pulls his hand back, washing it under the shower stream. She sighs contentedly again, poking his calf with her big toe. "See? No reason to fight it."

Of course his hallucination would justify his own actions. She just enjoys it because he wants her to, there's nothing she could do that's independent from his subconsciousness. "That's not helpful."

"Mhm." She bites her beautiful plush red lip. "So what would be helpful?"

"Telling me where your missing base is," he returns. "That would be helpful."

She worries away at her beautiful plush red lip. He wants to kiss her. "I think it's near Sklad. West. Is that the one you're looking for?"

He realizes he knows where that is. "Wait, how do you know that? You can't know that."

She grins, slapping his shoulder. "I don't know, you dummy. I'm dead."

Right. He groans, dousing his crotch. "Promise me, if I go there, that you'll leave me alone."

"I thought we were having fun," she protests. "No, seriously, I can't control that. Again, I'm dead."

"I don't know," he complains. "Just look it up, okay? Just look at the satellite images, shouldn't take too long."

He's told Sam about the hallucination, minus the shower part and the sex part, but he's absolutely not going to admit to Carter that he sees and talks to her dead friend. No way. And if that means he has to badger her until she gives in to his undisclosed source, that's entirely worth it.

Carter snorts through the phone. "Look it up yourself, you asshole. It's called Google Earth."

"Tried, it's all blurry," Sam throws in. "You have better imaging, don't you?"

Of course she does. She groans loudly. "Urgh. Fine. That's the last time I'm doing anything for you, though. What's the name of the town again?"

"Sklad," Sam replies. "It's in Sakha Republic. Not much of a town, actually, we couldn't make out a single building."

"It's along the Olenyok River," Bucky adds. "And the facility should be somewhere West."

"You guys are fucking with me, aren't you," Carter states incredulously. "Okay. I'll call you back in half an hour."

The phone toots when she hangs up. Sam rubs his forehead. "I don't know, man. This is really weird."

And he doesn't even know half of it. "Let's just try it. Otherwise, I won't get it off my mind."

"But you already knew where it was, didn't you?" Sam remarks. "There's no other reason you would know a barely-there town in the middle of nowhere. Your hallucination can tell you nothing new. Maybe … maybe Hydra reused an old KGB base."

Possible, but he doesn't remember it. "I don't know. Really."

"Or it's not a hallucination," Sam suggests. "She didn't just die, after all, she sacrificed herself for one of the Infinity Stones. Maybe that does something."

Oh, please not. Fucking his hallucination is bad enough, fucking the projection of her soul or whatever is beyond repair. "She really said she was dead. And that she couldn't tell me stuff she would know if she were really here. And… I don't know, why would she come to me, of all people? Why not to you?"

"Good point.” Sam grimaces. "Shapeshifters. Next theory."

If he's actually physically doing the things he's doing to her to someone, he's gonna put a bullet in his head. "She just evaporates. Plus the dreams. And if there were someone physically here, you'd see her, too."

Sam looks around. "So she's not here now?"

"I can't just make her appear or disappear," Bucky replies. "But I definitely saw her a few times where you didn't see her at all. It's probably just hallucination. Or some elaborate psychic trick played on me for no apparent reason."

"Yeah, let's stick with what we know," Sam decides. "Do you see her anywhere in particular? Or in particular situations?"

"Usually when I'm alone," he admits. "And when I'm at least to some degree lost in my thoughts, which supports the hallucination theory. Like she helps me think. Remember that time on the bus when we caught Zemo's goon? I was sitting there and she appeared all of a sudden, like- Hey, isn't that the guy from the file? And of course I had seen the file, and I already had seen him out of the corner of my eye, so it was just a matter of putting things together."

"Sounds pretty helpful, your hallucination," Sam remarks.

He snorts. "More often the opposite, believe me."

" _South_. Not a speck to the West. _South_."

"So you found it?" Sam questions hopefully.

Carter snorts. "I scrolled around forever, nothing in sight, and then I decided you're full of shit anyway and looked elsewhere. There's a more mountainous spot South and there's an unmarked facility tucked in there. Looks something like a fortress."

He didn't really think it would turn anything up, deep down. "But that's great," Sam points out enthusiastically. "We should go there immediately."

"Already booked you a chopper," Carter returns. "There's a landing pad there, which is pretty suspicious. Good luck. And remember, you owe me."

They land in the darkness, but they're quite far up North so it's dark for most of the day. The color on the landing pad is faded. The facility indeed looks like a fortress, with a wall and watchtowers around a big building inside, all of it made from stone and concrete. It looks menacing. He doesn't feel good about this.

"Does this seem familiar to you?" Sam asks, loading up his guns.

Bucky shakes his head. Nothing rings any bells. He had thought for a moment this might have been the helicopter pad from his first dream about Natasha but there were no hills in the background then, just open fields of snow. Still, he can tell this is not a good place, and staying here wouldn't have been fun.

"Looks abandoned," Sam adds, starting up the drone. "Long abandoned. How likely is it there's still spring guns around?"

Bucky grimaces, opening the helicopter door and slipping out. There's a thin layer of snow, no footprints anywhere in sight. Except for a hare. The building has some small windows but all of them are dark. The watchtowers are empty. The metal gate is closed and locked. If it's been abandoned, it has been orderly abandoned.

Redwing, as Sam insists on calling it, starts up and hovers over the wall. "No footprints," Sam reports. "No cars either. No weapons in the towers- I don't know, this place seems completely empty."

"Doesn't mean there won't be traps," Bucky remarks, staring at the dark fortress. "Let's go inside."

The gate is heavy but he breaks it out of its hinges easily, the snow muffling some of the crash. The courtyard is indeed empty, as Sam said. There would have been enough space to park cars, though those are useless without roads around, or enough space to train. Sam points to the right and there are targets, lots of holes in them. Shooting practice. "If you're here, there's nowhere to flee," Sam remarks. "No settlements for hundreds of miles. Only way out is the chopper."

It's a desolate place indeed. The targets are still there but no guns anywhere to be seen. Very orderly. He breaks the lock on the main entrance, greeted with a cloud of dust. Abandoned. There's a dark hallway that opens to the left, empty nails on the walls where photographs must have hung. He walks down the hallway-

"Stop."

He freezes mid-motion. Sam walks up behind him, peering down at a string going from one wall to a tiny hole in the other. "Yeah, that looks like a trap."

They step over it carefully, keeping an eye out for more. The windows seem to be largely intact, so it's a little warmer inside than outside, even without heating. There are three pictures left at the end of the hallway. Sam points to the one on the left. "Who's that?"

"Brezhnev," he replies. "'64 to '82. The one in the middle is Yuri Andropov, chairman of the KGB around the same time. I don't recognize the woman."

"Hm," Sam remarks, turning to the left. "Doesn't seem super-secret."

The hallway opens to a sort of ballroom. There's a chandelier, a grand piano, wooden floor, wall-height mirrors with a barre in front. Empty grandeur. Sam tries a few keys on the piano, which still works but only off-tune. "Nat used to dance. Didn't like to talk about it, though."

He sees her again with the knives strapped to her feet, scratching over the floor, covered in cuts and blood. What's that supposed to tell him? Just the guilt? That he's really going insane? Just dream bullshit?

There's an old wooden staircase going up behind him, ornaments on the handrail. It has that specific look of Russian splendor designed to glorify the Union and communism but actually much more a relic of a past of extreme inequality. It's certainly not tasteful. There's dust on it, thick. It croaks when he walks up.

Upstairs, another hallway. There are numbers on the doors, black paint, one to eight. Another stairway. The door behind the staircase doesn't have a number. It's locked but gives in easily when he pushes.

It's a middle-sized room, bigger than he expected, around 300 square feet. There's a window opposite the door going down into the courtyard, towards the gate, thick dark curtains. In front of it a heavy desk and a leather chair and, most of all, dozens of wooden crates nailed shut. They're not ordered, not numbered, just put down quickly and left there to gather dust. "Sam?"

The stairway croaks and Sam shows up in the door, grimacing. "Oh. Wanna bet it's files? Those people love their files."

"Looks more like weapons," Bucky remarks, ripping a wooden plank off, revealing a machine gun. PKM. Plenty of ammunition. Looks like the modernized version, judging from the barrel and the metal shoulder strap. Still pretty old.

"Oh, come on," Sam interrupts, handing him the machine gun and pulling back the padding. "That can't be all."

He's already irritated at being handed the PKM- what's he supposed to do with _that_ \- and then the pulled back padding reveals even more files. Great. "Ha, told you," Sam retorts. "Of course it's files."

Yes. More happy reading. He sighs, putting the PKM down on the desk. "Fine. Let's go through it."

Most of the files do not appear to be from this facility, which makes sense given that they're in transport boxes. Somebody dropped them off here, before the other facilities became unsafe. They're newer than the ones in the hut outside Arkhangelsk.

He finds Black Widow mission files under a stack of Makarovs. It's a lot. Mission reports, evaluations, briefings. Assassinations, infiltrations, military espionage. Remarkable success rate, of course. It starts in the late sixties and goes all the way to the eighties. Again, it's a lot.

He's still not found anything on Natasha when Sam holds up a manila folder. Bucky scrambles up. "Is that Natasha's?"

"Looks like it's yours."

Punch in the gut. He's about to tell Sam not to open that but he's already flipped it open. "Doesn't look complete," Sam remarks. "Sure you've never been here?"

He doesn't know this place, and he's feeling sick. "No. Please- please don't look in there."

But Sam's already flipping through it, through even more people he's killed, murdered, maimed- "Hey," Sam suggests. "Isn't that Nat's name?"

He hurries over. Just a page of text. Sam's pointing at- Natalia Alianovna Romanova. Number 19. What's she- "What's Nat doing in your file?"

He rips the file out of Sam's hands but his heart is beating too fast to read. The letters swim together and he can't make anything out. He just knows this is _bad_.

"Uh." Sam has picked something off the floor, holding it up. It's a photograph, black and white, yellowed edges- it's a woman, Natasha, in the doorway of a classicist building, wearing a long flowery dress and a jeans jacket, smiling- the guy, he, his left arm is blurred like he's just pulling it back or putting it around her shoulders, and he's looking down but it's unmistakably _him_ and he's _grinning._ Shit. Something breaks.

Sam clears his throat and picks up another photo that must have slipped from the file. Two silhouettes behind a curtain, closely entwined. "Looks like- well, and somebody was spying on you."

He doesn't remember it but it seems right. Why doesn't he remember it? Why? He looks down at the page and it clears, all of a sudden- it's his movements and her movements, separately, together, separately again. The city is Prague. The year is 1977, some of it 78. There are other cities, other places- there's a facility in Northern Siberia, he recognizes the code from the other Widows' files-

He skips to the end of the file and stares into his own frozen face.

More pictures drop out, but most of them seem to have only one of them, either him or her. He flips back a few pages, text, it's all text, he has no patience for text-

Sam silently shows him a picture of a gloved left hand against Natasha's cheek, a guy with a hat pressing a kiss to her forehead.

He stumbles backwards, crashing into the heavy desk, gripping it so hard with his left the wood splinters. No. This can't be it. This goes against everything-

"What's in there?" Sam asks gently.

He reads, really tries. At least the last ones. "March 11. 1978. At 2 a.m., subject A and number 19- that must be her- apprehended- in 19's room. Subject A- subject A is neutralized. Number 19 will not confess to-"

"To what?" Sam prompts.

"Thing," Bucky translates clumsily. "Affair. Subject A is taken away, something about electric shocks- Oh."

"What?"

"Even after extensive interrogation, number 19 will not admit to-" He stumbles again, two languages too much for his brain right now. "- breaking, corrupting subject A. Memory is reset to February 1977- that's before the file starts. Subject A is transferred to undisclosed location. Number 19 shows no recognition of images of subject A. Memory wipe is judged successful."

He stares at the empty space underneath. "Is that all?" Sam asks carefully. He nods slowly. "Well, that… certainly explains why your subconsciousness is obsessed with her."

That's why he dreams about sleeping with her. Because he slept with her, 40 years ago. When he absolutely shouldn't have. Even less than now. And now she's dead- it's like she just died all over again. God, he fucked her over so bad, even more than he ever knew- "I guess she's older than we ever knew," Sam remarks. "But… honestly, it's not that surprising. She talked a lot about the KGB, for a person supposedly born in 1984."

"Extensive interrogation means torture," he interrupts, digging his fingers into the desk. "You know that, right? They tortured her, because of me."

"Sorry," Sam offers quietly. "Do you… do you think she knew? Despite the memory wipe?"

He has no idea. But there was something that felt right about- shooting through her instead of killing her, saying she was his, taking her gun from her locker. It makes sense now, his obsession. He thought he'd be relieved, feel less creepy- but this is so much worse. He got her into so much trouble, and pain. All he ever brought her was pain and suffering. He can't make up for this, not in a million years. She kills people who hurt her. But now she's dead. Oh, he's crying, tears exploding on the paper.

Sam takes the file from him, gently. Thumbs through the earlier parts. "You know, I was just thinking… This looks pretty much like the file she gave Steve on you, so he could look for you. And it was just a bunch of pages, big holes in between. So maybe she did know about this facility but left everything about herself here. Because she didn't want to tell us."

He doesn't care. It doesn't matter. "Let's go back."

Sam looks up in surprise. "What? You just want to leave that here?"

"I can't even _look at it_ ," he hisses. "I'm done with this. She's dead. This is just opening up old wounds."

Sam forces him to go to room 19 but there's nothing there other than a well-made bed and a creaky chair. He knows he's never been here, never seen this room, never seen this place. It's just the files that ended up here, for some reason.

Sam also takes his file, the tear-stained one, like that does any good. Bucky's too tired to fight. Sam flies them back while Bucky stares out at the wide, dark, empty landscapes.

He gets the necklace from his nightstand as soon as he can, and then he drops out into the streets, wandering around aimlessly until he's tired of that, too, and enters a bar to get drunk.

He still sees her everywhere, even more so after a few drinks. Instead of a reminder that he's weird, a reminder that he hurt her and that he lost her. It's like she came alive and died again. And that's his fault. Guilt he can't make right. What's he gonna do? Apologize to her grave? She didn't even get one.

Forever being haunted by an army of Natashas seems fair, to be honest.

One of them slips onto the stool next to him. Upon closer inspection, it's not quite Natasha's face, there's something off about her facial features though he couldn't say what. But unless he actively stares at her, he can't really tell the difference. She's dressed for a night out, tight jeans, flimsy sparkly top, leather jacket. " _You look sad._ "

He snorts into his drink. She has something of a Muscovite accent but Natasha's voice. Boy, he's drunk. " _You don't wanna know."_

She tilts her head, black bangs slipping to the side. The hairstyle doesn't cut it, though, she still sounds and looks almost exactly like Natasha. " _You're not from around here, are you?_ "

Yeah, he's been told before he has an accent. Pretty obvious one, too. " _You either_."

The fake Natasha laughs and orders a drink. He takes the opportunity to check her out, but it's useless if his brain keeps projecting Natasha. He misses her. Now he knows why he misses her.

She gets her drink, turning to him and sucking on the straw while gazing at him through her lashes. It's pretty transparent. " _Mhm. To sadness_."

" _To forgetting_ ," he replies, knocking one back.

She looks intrigued, playing with her straw. " _Are all Americans so sad?_ "

That's a dumb line and she knows it but she delivers it with the utmost sincerity. He rolls his eyes. "Listen, I'm not good company right now."

" _I'll be the judge of that_ ," she returns. " _You want another_?"

He chuckles, swirling the empty glass. " _Are you trying to get me drunk?_ "

" _You're already drunk_ ," fake Natasha returns unfazed. " _Hey, give him another one of that. Whatever that was._ "

Well, she's not wrong. He likes her, actually. Rare that someone's so straightforward. Maybe he's hallucinating her again.

She grabs his hand before he can drink. "Hey. Пить без тоста — это пьянка."

Her fingers are rough, calloused. Right. Drinking without a toast is boozing. He snorts, looking down at her tiny hand. " _We're gonna be through all of them really quick._ "

" _Nah, you just need practice_ ," she replies, letting go of his wrist and raising her glass. " _To our meeting._ "

She did it smarter than him, a long drink she can guzzle for hours, and he needs to take a shot every time. Not that he minds. " _To love_."

"Mhm." She moves her barstool closer to his, her right knee touching his. " _Wanna talk about it?_ "

He stares into the empty glass, shaking his head. He really just wants her to tell him it's okay, but it's not okay. She's dead. Hallucinating won't bring her back. Nothing will. This just goes to show him what he lost even without knowing he ever had it. He lost her 40 years ago, forever, and now he lost her again, forever. Feels fair. She probably was better off without him. If only he hadn't tried to kill her then, multiple times.

Natasha next to him sighs, leaning on the bar. " _Do you wanna come over? I have a place._ "

" _Why?_ " he asks stupidly.

She snorts. " _You know why. Idiot._ "

He likes this Natasha. The one who doesn't take any shit. " _That's not a good idea_."

She shrugs, stirring her drink. " _Okay. Just offering._ "

He's wondering how to find out whether she's an actual person that he's projecting Natasha's face on or just a hallucination. Can't really tell the difference. Can't really care, either. " _So, what are you doing here?_ "

" _Nothing_." She looks around. " _Just went out for the night. Saw you looking all sad and mopey. Guess I have a soft heart._ "

He snorts. " _Yeah, don't do that. Leads nowhere good._ "

She grins, nudging him with her elbow. " _Eh, it's not that bad. You should try it sometime._ "

She's honey trapping him and he's so here for it. " _Try what sometime_?"

She leans in to whisper in his ear, hot breath against his cheek. " _Have fun. Hit on the sad stranger at the bar_."

" _You don't look sad,_ " he remarks with amusement, barely keeping his hands to himself and not around her waist, in her hair, on her hips.

She looks up at him through her lashes, smirking. " _Oh, I can. If you want me to._ "

He snorts. He doesn't even care if she's real or not. " _I think I'm sad enough for us both_."

Her hand slips up his thigh. Her face is very close. He'd just have to lean over a bit and- Yeah, that's where his thoughts stop and his lips meet hers, her fingers digging into his thigh as he kisses her softly. Relief washes over him. To forgetting indeed. She kisses him back slowly, with care.

He pulls back, dizzy, staring at her. She still looks like Natasha. Good enough. " _You got a place_?"

Her eyes flutter open. " _Mhm_. _Not far_."

He waits for his stomach to turn but it never does. " _Wanna go there?_ "

She grins wickedly, squeezing his thigh. " _Oh, sure._ "

The night air is cold. It's a weeknight so the streets are rather empty. She pulls his arm around her shoulders, pressing against his side. She's a little taller than Natasha was but she's wearing heels. She giggles and tries to kiss him while walking, which doesn't go together all that well, and between the two, he has a clear favorite, and that's how they end up in an alley, his back pressed against the brick wall, and she unbuckles his belt. Well. Can't say that's not what he was going for. He kisses her and gropes her ass while her hand disappears in his boxers. He mewls against her lips.

Her other hand slips under his shirt while she gives him slow strokes. He pushes his thigh between her legs and her nails dig into his chest, finding the necklace, her necklace, flicks it out over the neckline of his shirt. " _Mhm. What's that?_ "

He doesn't really care, thrusting into her hand, throwing his head back. " _She's dead_."

She kisses him softly, slowing the movement of her hand, which is not what he wanted. " _Sorry. Who was she?_ "

" _Doesn't matter_ ," he snaps back, though he can't help but clench a fist. She shushes him, taking his left hand and slipping it under her shirt. His anger melts as he slips his fingers under the wire of her bra. " _Sorry_."

" _That's okay_." She leans in to whisper into his ear, stroking him faster. " _Is that why you're so sad? Because she's dead?_ "

He groans, bucking his hips, squeezing her breast. "Yes."

She pulls on the necklace, pulling him down to her. "Who was she to you?"

It finally dawns on him she's way too interested in the necklace, for a casual hook-up, and maybe that's a coincidence but she literally has him by the balls with his left arm at least slowed down by the tight bra and shirt. Shit, he's dumb. And drunk. He yanks her hand out of his pants, the left arm rips through her bra and top and his gloved metal fingers wrap around her neck, slamming her into the opposite brick wall but not squeezing yet. "Who the fuck are you? What do you want?"

"Easy," she purrs. She doesn't fight it, though he's pretty sure she could. "That's no way to treat a girl, Sergeant Barnes."

He drops her like a hot potato, flinching away. She rubs her neck, though he didn't leave fingerprints there, thank God. He's too drunk and too sad for this. She knows who he is and he doesn't even care. "What do you want?"

She snorts, trying to pull her bra and top together but giving up immediately. "So you don't recognize me? At all?"

Jesus Christ, he probably murdered a family member of hers. That's usually what it is. And if he were less drunk, he'd say that. And fix his pants. "Almost everyone looks like her to me."

She zips up her leather jacket, nodding towards the necklace. "Her?"

He groans. She still has Natasha's face. "Get to the point."

"That is the point," she returns, crossing her arms. "Why do you wear it? Because you wanted to bang her and didn't get to?"

Oh, fuck that. "What's it to you? Were you really gonna seduce me just to ask that?"

She doesn't even blink. "Yeah, was really easy. So you were into her, huh?"

He's not entirely sure at what point they switched to English but she sounds _exactly_ like Natasha. Not the faintest accent. "You really look like her."

"Probably why it was so easy," she returns unfazed. "So?"

He sees fake Natashas everywhere but this is the first one that stays that way. That probably means something. She can't just be a hallucination. Some time travel bullshit? No, they were done with that. And she was dead, no way of getting her back. "I loved her," he admits. "A long time ago."

"Hm." She tilts her head. "And that's nowhere on file? Nobody else knows about it?"

He's tired of answering questions, when he just admitted to so much he didn't even know a few days ago. "No, now it's your turn. How long have you been following me? How do you know about the necklace?"

She snorts, looking towards the other side of the street where a couple is just passing by. "Right. I knew you'd be in town, because of the murder. Have been trying to find you for a while. And I read about the necklace from the leaked arrest file, New Mexico or wherever it was. Figured you knew something I didn't."

He didn't know shit until yesterday, and now he doesn't even want to know it anymore. "Wait, did you murder that guy?"

She shrugs. "He seemed like a dick. Read about him in her files. And luring you here seemed easier than following you around."

Unbelievable. So no Zemo. "Why do you care? About her files, the guy, the necklace? Who the fuck are you even?"

She grins, biting her lip. "Right. Funny story. So… how do I explain this."

"Quickly," he suggests.

She snorts. "Oh, fuck off. Well, my recollection starts with October of last year. I have no memories before then. Didn't even know who I was. Just woke up somewhere and… apparently, there was an alien battle just before? You had something to do with it. Again, I didn't know anything, but I found out pretty quickly that I look like her. Yeah, I have the scars, before you rip my clothes off again. Left shoulder, left abdomen."

He blushes. "Where did you wake up?"

"Mongolia," she replies. "I don't know. I had the red hair with the blonde tips, too, the one she had when she died. Including the braid. I looked up everything I could find on her."

"Banner tried to get you back," he states. "Her. With the time travel. It didn't work. But… maybe it did. Except you got amnesia and ended up in Mongolia."

She shrugs. "Maybe. I was pondering that, too. So when I read about you running around with the hourglass necklace, I thought you must know something about me that I don't. Something that's not on the record."

A group of drunkards pass by and they both duck into the shadows. "Oh yeah," she whispers. "I should point out I definitely had spy training and I'm really good at killing people."

Great. Just great. The group passes. "Who else did you kill?"

"No one," she replies. "I wanted to but they were all already dead. Guess I was thorough."

Oh, this is not confusing at all. "I- I guess I should take you to Sam. Make sure I'm not going crazy."

She nods towards his crotch. "Yeah, you should fix your pants, too. And get me a new shirt, because I can't run around like this."

Sam is still awake when they come back to the hotel, light shining through under the door. Natasha has zipped up her leather jacket as high as possible and that has to do until he gets to his closet. He turns the key in the lock. Sam jumps up from bed when he comes in. "Where the fuck were you? I was worried. You couldn't just pick up your phone?"

Right. The phone. "Uh… please don't freak out."

Sam frowns but Natasha is already striding into the room, no inhibitions whatsoever. "Hey. You're Sam Wilson. I read about you."

Sam's jaw drops. At least Bucky's not the only one seeing it. "Bucky! What the fuck?!"

"I picked her up in a bar," he tries to justify. "She has amnesia."

"Excuse me, _I_ picked _him_ up in a bar," Natasha corrects. "And I'm not crazy, I just don't remember anything before last October. Oh, and I'm going to need a shirt, that's his fault, too."

Bucky rolls his eyes and picks one out of his closet, dark blue. Sam is too stunned to say anything. She catches. "Thanks. Be right back."

The bathroom door closes behind her. "What the fuck?!" Sam repeats. "Did you- did you manifest your hallucination into existence and now she's mad at you?"

"How the fuck would I do that," he returns. "I'm not a witch! I don't know, just ask her."

"She's gotta be a clone," Sam mutters. "Fuck. We need to call Sharon."

"She said she has the scars," he remarks. "Would a clone have the scars? Is cloning even a thing? I mean, that October thing is pretty suspicious."

Sam snorts. "You asshat. Is that all she needs to say to-"

The bathroom door opens and Natasha emerges in his shirt, leather jacket thrown over her arm. "Did you say cloning? And hallucination?"

"Yeah, he's an idiot," Sam tells her. "Are you a clone?"

"I don't know," she replies, dropping onto Bucky's bed. "Mind if I sit here? Well, if I'm a clone, I'm a really good clone."

"So you don't know," Sam remarks. "Whether you're a clone or you're actually her but with amnesia or some sort of shapeshifter."

"I can't shapeshift," she replies, leaning back. Her nipples peak through the fabric. Jesus Christ, how can he _still_ be horny for her? "Uh, I dyed my hair black. If that's what's confusing you."

"Nah, that's not what's confusing me," Sam returns. "So you couldn't tell us anything that would prove you're actually her?"

"I mean, I know a lot about- me." She frowns. "But I don't remember any of it, no. Only what's in the files."

Sam sighs, dropping onto his bed, clutching his hands. "Fine, let's try that. When are you born?"

"1951," she replies. "I know the SHIELD files say 1984 but that's bullshit, if you just do the math."

"And where did you get the 1951?" Sam questions.

"KGB file," she replies. "I got my training file. It's 1951."

"Wait," he interrupts his thoughts that are still spiraling around her nipples. "Where did you get those?"

"Hydra facility on the coast of the White Sea," she replies. "It was in the SHIELD files that are online. I went there and they had a bunch of KGB files. Only took mine, though."

"Wait, that was you?" Sam interrupts. "Do you have it?"

She shrugs. "Sure. Not here, though. I don't carry it with me at all times."

Sam leans over and pulls the one with the hourglass on it from his bag. "Did you take it from this one?"

Natasha's brows knit together as she flips through the files. "Yeah, that's the one. It has all of the others, too. Tried to find some of them but that's pretty hard when you don't remember anything about them."

"Why'd you look for them?" Sam asks. "Instead of, you know, the Avengers?"

She snorts, rubbing her nose. "Turns out most of my so-called friends either died or fucked off. And to be honest, I wasn't sure enough that I'm- me. Wanted to gather more information before I approached them. You."

"What about your- let's say run-in at the bar?" Sam asks. "What was that about?"

"Well, I read that idiot's running around with a necklace with my symbol," Natasha remarks. "From the arrest record. And that seemed like a weird reaction to my death, after he tried to murder me multiple times, so I thought there might be more to it. But he doesn't want to tell me."

Bucky rolls his eyes. "Oh, you're just going to conveniently leave out the guy you murdered?"

"The guy?" Sam repeats. "The- the quartermaster guy?"

"He left me out in the snow for six hours!" Natasha complains. "Without shoes. I'm sure that was pretty bad."

"You can't just run around and kill people!" Sam returns. "Nat wouldn't do that."

"I only killed that one guy," Natasha corrects. "And he deserved it."

Sam groans, rubbing his eyes. "So Zemo was never here. That was you."

"I don't know anything about the guy you're looking for," she agrees. "I assume I had a really good network of informers. Unfortunately, I didn't leave me any notes."

"So he wasn't in the Hydra base, and he's not here either," Sam remarks. "So we got nothing."

"Well, you got me," Natasha adds. "I'm not going anywhere until this idiot tells me what he knows."

Apparently, that's her nickname for him now. Sam snorts. "You two had an affair. 1977. With all the forbidden romance bells and whistles."

"Oh yeah," she remarks, not in the least surprised. "I can see that."

He blushes so damn hard. Sam has the time of his life. "Uh, should I leave you to it then or…?"

"Just saying, I could see why I would have done that," she admits. "Okay. Didn't end well, the forbidden part?"

Sam shakes his head. "Well, we only found out about it yesterday. And he'd rather mope than translate the file for me, so that's about everything right now."

"Only yesterday?" she questions. "So you were running around with the necklace for _months_ before that?"

He tries to shrug nonchalantly. "He was hallucinating about you," Sam explains. "That's why he's totally okay with you appearing all of a sudden, he's been seeing you around for months."

Wow, thanks. What a friend. She wiggles her eyebrows at him. "Hallucinating, huh? I can imagine how that went."

"Oh, fuck off," he returns. "That wasn't _fun_."

"Well, you could give me the file," she suggests to Sam. "My Russian is definitely better than his."

"I don't quite trust you yet," Sam admits. "Nothing personal. Just, you were dead. This is all a little unexpected."

"Fair," she acknowledges. "So, what are you going to do then?"

"Sharon probably has some idea on how to test whether you're really you," Sam replies. "I'm gonna call her. Don't run away."

"No intention of doing so," Natasha returns, leaning back. "Take your time."

Sam picks up the phone and locks himself in the bathroom. Natasha wiggles her eyebrows at Bucky. Her nipples are pressing through again. Through his shirt, nonetheless. "Wanna see the scars now?"

"You do that for fun or just to annoy me?" he asks back. "The whole picking me up in a bar thing? Was that really necessary?"

She shrugs, breasts heaving. "I don't know. The necklace thing was kinda cute, though, so I thought I'd try. What?"

"Your hallucination said that," he explains hesitantly. "That it was kinda cute."

She pulls his shirt over her head without prompting. "Mhm. Did your hallucination have the scars?"

Hers look bad. They're exactly where he remembers putting them. He swallows. "No."

She pulls the shirt on again. "Makes sense. If we only had that thing in '77."

He snorts. "Yeah, we certainly didn't have anything after."

"Aww." She leans back, grinning, tucking the hem of his shirt into her pants. "And you're sad about that?"

"I was sad because you were dead," he returns. "Now… I don't know. I don't even know what's going on."

"It felt like nobody remembered me," she acknowledges. "Like I've been just forgotten. And your necklace, it was like you were paying homage to me. I thought you'd recognize me once I talked to you. Wasn't planning on giving you a hand job in a dark alley."

Yeah, it's his fucked-up mind that prevented him from seeing that. "You must have been pissed off when I didn't recognize you."

She smirks. "I kinda was. Disappointed. But then I just made the best of it. Wasn't very patient, though."

Shoving her hand down his pants certainly wasn't- the bathroom door opens. "Everyone still there? Good," Sam remarks, rubbing his forehead. "Okay, Sharon thinks we're going absolutely bonkers but she suggested we take a blood probe and compare it against Nat's. If that matches, we'll think about more tests. Is that okay with you?"

"Sure. So where do we go?"

"Nowhere," Sam replies, crouching down and rummaging through his bag. "Oh, here. This thing takes your blood sample and sends the data to a SHIELD lab. Sharon didn't want to take you there until we have a better indication you're really you and not some evil clone."

"Fair," Natasha agrees, extending a finger. The device looks like the ones used to measure blood sugar, just fancier. "I mean, I wanna know, too."

Sam pricks her in the finger and waits until the device uploads. "Okay, that'll take a couple of hours to test. Uh, Sharon also said we absolutely shouldn't let you out of our sight, so you'll have to stay here for the night."

She grins, licking the little wound on her finger. "Sleepover. Sounds fun."

Sam snorts. "Yeah, I'm really fucking tired. But I'm sure Bucky will let you have his bed and his pajamas and whatever else you need."

"Oh, fuck you," he returns. He only has two pairs of sweatpants and one is still wet from washing it in the shower after that unfortunate dream a few days ago. Seems like it was forever ago, though. He doesn't even want to think about it. "You give her the clothes, then I'll sleep on the floor."

Sam rolls his eyes at the unnecessary aggressiveness and reaches into his bag. "Fine. There, that one has a drawstring, should fit. Oh, your sample has been sent. Then I can go the fuck to sleep."

"Thanks," Natasha replies as Sam crawls under the blanket, closes his eyes and pretends to already be out. "Can I go to the bathroom alone or is that also out of your sight?"

Bucky's face heats up. "Just go."

She shrugs and closes the bathroom door behind her. Bucky hurries to change while she's not there. Sam turns and gives him a look. "You can't handle her at all, can you."

"Of course I can't!" Bucky hisses, almost stumbling because he's still entangled on these fucking pants. "Jesus Christ."

Sam rolls his eyes and rolls on the other side again.

Natasha sleeps absolutely soundly, in his bed, and Sam too, by the sound of it, and Bucky is the one lying awake on the floor the whole night, staring at the ceiling. He's making this up, right? This can't be real, it's too bonkers. Good things like that don't happen, especially around him. It's gonna turn out to be wrong somehow.

Sam wakes up early, as always, takes a shower, brushes his teeth, leaving to get breakfast at the baker's. Model human. Bucky drags himself under the shower as well, gets dressed in the bathroom, only realizes he left the door open when Natasha peeks in. Bed head, his shirt, Sam’s sweatpants tied around her hips and rolled up to her ankles. She’s cute. “Got a toothbrush for me, by any chance?”

There’s one wrapped in plastic in front of the mirror, issued by the hotel. He hands her that, then pulls on his shirt. She nods towards his left shoulder. “Already saw pictures of your scars but… looks worse in person.”

He snorts, pulling the hem of the shirt down. “Did you purposefully look for pictures of me shirtless?”

She smirks, leaning against the doorframe, black hair sliding over her shoulder. “Yes. Why?”

The door opens and she slips out of the way. “Breakfast,” Sam announces. “Got you milk and sugar. Hope you still like that.”

“Sounds fine,” she replies, pushing away from the doorway. “Actually started to think I’m more of a tea person but who knows.”

He hears her drop back on his bed. Sam gives him a look. He shrugs, checking out a stubborn edge of his fingernail.

Sam rolls his eyes and passes into the room as well. “Yeah, you used to drink a lot of tea as well. Oh, Sharon texted, let’s see.”

He clips the annoying nail. Her flimsy sparkly top and the ripped bra are in the trash. “You gonna tell me?” Natasha’s voice asks.

“Got a match,” Sam replies. “Exact match. So you get to go to the lab and do even more tests.”

Great. More tests always help. "Hear that, Bucky?" Sam calls. "We gotta pack our stuff."

"Hey, I need to pack my stuff, too," Natasha interjects. "I'm not some hobo, I got a place. I already told him that."

He grimaces. "Well, you two pick that up then," Sam suggests. "While I take care of everything here."

She snorts. "What, you're really gonna let me run around alone with that idiot?"

"Good point," Sam agrees. "Let's go all three, after breakfast."

Her place is quite nice, actually. Little room just under the roof of a residential building, pictures of flowers, fairy lights. Clothes strewn around. Looks like a student apartment. She grabs clothes and throws them carelessly into a duffle bag. Quick packing is a skill in their line of work.

He finds the file in a protective plastic wrap near the window, pulls it out and flips through it. Really looks like the ones of the others, ripped on the left. "Is that the one?"

She throws a look over her shoulder. Still wearing his shirt. He shouldn't get so distracted by that. "Yes. It's not all that interesting, though, just training logs. I bet the one you have is better."

"Nice place you got," Sam says to change the topic. "Cozy."

She snorts. "No reason to live in a garbage dumpster. Uh, I'm gonna change, if you wanna turn around or something."

There's a sticky note in the file. He plucks it out and reads what's underneath. He recognizes the name of the quartermaster, the dead one. It's an episode from 1965, December. Something about her acting up, though it's not clear what it's about.

"So where do we go?" she asks. "And how do we get there?"

"There's a jet that will pick us up," Sam says. "Are you done?"

So she was really locked out on purpose. More like five hours, though. Seems she was just too stubborn to give in. "Just a second," she says. "Uh, I got a few guns in that box under my bed. Can I get them? Don't wanna leave them just lying around."

Bucky drops the file and pulls the box from under the bed, cracking it open. "Wow, you just got every kind of Glock, didn't you?"

"I'm a Glock girl," she returns, slipping a watch on. "I think. You can turn around, I'm done."

"Guess we really shouldn't leave those here," Sam remarks. "Anything else?"

"Oh yeah." She pulls another box from under her bed, shoving the top off. "Forgot about that one."

It's a suit, white and red, neatly folded up. Avengers A on the chest. Sam crouches down. "Wow, that's something. No wonder you wanted to get into her bed."

" _Fuck_ off," Bucky hisses.

"You think I didn't see the bra in the trash?" Sam returns, pulling on the sleeve. "Oh yeah. That's the Time-Space GPS."

"I didn't try whether it works," Natasha remarks, pulling it out of the box. "Seemed too dangerous. And I had this black mesh suit underneath."

"Sensible," Sam remarks. "Okay, let's just take this to Sharon. She'll know what to do with it."

There's a lot of tests to do and he doesn't understand half of them. Something with her teeth and epigenetic signatures and reading out the GPS log. Carter has Banner flown in and also questions Bucky and Sam extensively about Natasha's sudden appearance and motives (he lies shamelessly, of course, but Carter seems like she can read very well between the lines). In the end, they can prove the Quantum suit is the one Nat had, the Time-Space GPS was on Vormir, the wear of her teeth suggests she's probably not a clone and there was something in the time-space continuum over Mongolia when Banner tried to get her back. It's all still circumstantial but that's just as good as they'll get, and he gets to pick her up outside the facility when she's released.

"Hey."

She smirks at him, duffle bag over her shoulder. "Hey. Missed me?"

He hasn't hallucinated her again. "Yeah. Hope the tests weren't too bad."

"Was a little weird," she agrees. "Sharon made me re-take the test I took when joining SHIELD. Roughly the same results. So I guess I'm functionally- me, I just need to get used to being me again."

"You'll figure it out," he replies, stuffing his hands into his pockets. It's a beautiful sunny day. "Yeah, I guess now that you're really you-" He hesitates. "Sorry I tried to kill you. Never got to say it."

"I already knew that, though," she replies. "Memory is a funny thing. Objectively, I don't remember anything but I've read so much about me it's started to feel real."

"Yeah, memories," he remarks drily. "Real fun."

"Guess you had time to read the file now," she suggests. "Our file."

He snorts, looking away over to a line of trees. "Didn't want to. You won't remember anyway and for me, it's just painful, so what's the point?"

Her eyes narrow. "Mhm. Already got the gist."

"Let's make new memories instead," he suggests. "Less painful ones."

She grins. "Are you asking me out?"

"I'm asking you to come on a wild goose chase after Zemo without any leads," he replies. "Assuming Sam's okay with that. He's waiting by the car, I just wanted to talk to you first."

She bites her lip. "I think I'd like that. It's been a bit lonely lately."

"I'd like that, too," he admits. "Let's go, then."

"By the way, did Bruce-" She sighs, walking. "I don't know, he was acting all weird."

"I don't know, ask Sam," he replies. "I wasn't around."

Sam's leaning against the car, arms crossed. "Hey, Nat. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good," she replies. "Do you mind if I tag along? Maybe I can help you find Zemo or whatever his name is. Turns out I'm a really good spy."

Sam snorts. "If you wanna do that to yourself, sure. On one condition."

That's not gonna end well. Bucky rounds the car and gets in on the passenger side. "Spit it out, you idiot."

"You two tell me when you fuck," Sam states, opening the car door. "Cause I'm not going to spend the next months guessing what's going on."

"Did you say _when_?" Bucky asks incredulously. "God, I hate you."

Natasha grins, climbing into the backseat. "Sounds about right. I mean, he was totally down to fuck someone who looked like me even though he thought it wasn't really me."

"I was having a _really_ bad night." Bucky groans. "God, I'm never gonna live that down."

"You're still wearing the necklace," she points out, stretching out on the backseat. "Ahhh. So yeah, Sam, you'll be the first to know. I mean technically the third, but you get the point."

"Thanks," Sam replies with amusement, starting the car. "So. Anyone got any idea on where we're going?"

"No," Bucky replies. "But you can pry that necklace from my cold dead hands."

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, you made it! Sorry for the super long chapter.
> 
> If you want to go granular, there are two little hints in the shower sex scene that Bucky subconsciously knows they have a past.
> 
> Again, there will be a long sequel about Natasha that deals with her missing memories and her identity crisis. I'll put them in a series once I start posting!


End file.
